Chapter 3

No one stirred in either the Leatherman or Dunston houses. Both couples slept until the sun was high up in the sky. It was the usual Sunday routine for Lucia and Dirk Leatherman. Both had dropped all pretenses of a religious belief while in college, many years past. Lucia considered herself an agnostic; Dirk never bothered to try and classify himself.

On most Sundays Boyd and Faith got up in time to attend both Sunday school and church services. Not that they were devoutly religious. It was merely the easiest way to get along, since the church they normally attended was pastored by Faith's father. It was a small church, a fundamentalist sect, and Faith's father shouted his sermons from the pulpit in the best tradition of a vanishing style of hell-fire oratory that sometimes made the hair on the back of Boyd's neck stand up in fright.

That Sunday Boyd awoke slowly. He glanced sleepily over at the clock on the bedside table. He groaned aloud. Sunday school was over and the church service was more than ten minutes underway. There'd be hell to pay at supper. Though Faith's mother was a wonderful cook, no one would enjoy the meal. Her father would see to that, as he always did when they failed to show up for Sunday morning worship. A private sermon was in order, and though he'd heard it enough times to memorize it word for word, it still left him feeling like the worst of sinners for not caring sufficiently for Faith to look after her soul by making sure that she was in a front pew when her father delivered his message of the week to the small flock.

Reaching for a cigarette, Boyd wondered why they'd forgotten to set the alarm. He had the cigarette in his mouth and lit before he was awake enough to remember anything of last night's activities. His hand trembling slightly, he shook out the match and sucked a deep pull of smoke down into his lungs. The dead match fell into the ash tray with a tiny tinkle. He exhaled with a sigh, turning to look at Faith.

A sleeping angel. That's what she reminded him of. Her appearance of this morning was no different than on any other morning. The features of her lovely face were calm and serene. A radiant innocence seemed to emanate from her.

Could it have been a dream? Grotesque mental images of his pure wife lost in lustful abandon with Dirk Leatherman flitting careeningly across Boyd's mind. It had seemed so real, so painful. Had he only dreamt it? But wait--what about the shameful way he and Faith had ripped at each other after they got home?

Boyd ran one hand under himself and felt his back. He winced in pain at the swollen welts left by Faith's long fingernails. The final climax of their private orgy had brought out a purely animal part of his wife that Boyd had never before suspected. She'd clawed viciously at his back and yelled at the top of her lungs for him to come with her. After he had, they'd rolled apart and fell immediately into a deep sleep.

Sometime during the night Faith had managed to pull the cover up over her nude body. Boyd now eased it back gently. The sight of her full breasts rising and falling in the rhythm of sleep brought a stifled gasp. They were covered with bruises where his fingers had slapped so roughly.

No. It was not a dream. Faith was no longer the innocent young bride. She was now an adulteress, having taken her lover right in front of her own husband's eyes.

That was bad enough. The full knowledge of the situation made Boyd cringe. Faith's whorelike action was unthinkable, almost unbelievable. Recalling how his wife so passionately responded to Dirk made Boyd's cheeks flush in anger.

But there was something else, something that was much worse, to Boyd's way of thinking. He'd felt it last night, while he sat watching Dirk insert his big cock into Faith. The sight had brought out two emotions from the very depths of his being. The two emotions had fought with each other, had held him seated and helpless as Dirk took his place between Faith's opened legs.

The lewd mental picture of Dirk's big dick entering Faith's sweet pussy passed now before his eyes. It called forth the same two emotions, and once again he was trembling excitedly. Almost in one swift leap his prick jerked up stiff and throbbing. Boyd took it in his hand and squeezed. He closed his eyes.

Once again Faith writhed ecstatically under Dirk. Her whimpering moans of fulfillment echoed inside Boyd's head. Hairy nuts jerked spasmodically above a dancing female asshole. A young pussy completely filled with huge, spurting cock could not contain the massive load of sperm being shot forcefully into its depths. Sperm, white and slick, oozed out around the tautly stretched cunt lips and trickled into a pool in Faith's anus. Boyd groaned as he felt a wave of pleasure pass through his loins. Gritting his teeth at the intense orgasm, he let the come squirt from his tightly held organ and fall in warm, wet jets onto his naked stomach.

Shamefacedly, Boyd rose and went into the bathroom for his shower.

Faith had not moved when he came out several minutes later. He stood over her, looking down into her sleeping face as he tied the sash of his robe. Wincing again at the bruises on her lovely breasts, Boyd pulled the covers back up to her shoulders. After kissing her tenderly on the forehead, Boyd went to get the paper from the yard.

In the kitchen he put on the coffee, then sat down to read the paper while it perked. He intended to prepare breakfast and serve it to Faith in bed. It was the least he could do after mistreating her so last night. She was no more to blame for what had happened at the Leathermans' than he was. He resolved never to throw it up to her. He would not even mention it, he decided.

Faith awoke to find Boyd already out of bed. She looked at the clock and found that it was nearly noon. They'd missed both Sunday school and church. She groaned. Now she would experience the anger of two men, her husband's for what had happened the previous night and her father's for missing services.

Reluctant to get up and face the day ahead, Faith lay back in bed. She was trying to figure out what kind of defense would be best when Boyd confronted her, when she heard his footsteps coming toward the bedroom. As yet unprepared for the attack she knew was coming, Faith closed her eyes and feigned sleep. To her astonishment, the attack never came. Instead, Boyd bent lovingly over her and kissed her lightly on the nose, then tiptoed from the room without saying a word.

"Boyd?" Her puzzled voice stopped him in the bedroom doorway. She studied his face. There was no anger or hatred in his expression. He was smiling embarrassedly at her, like a small boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "Why didn't you wake me up, honey?"

"Ah, I forgot to set the alarm. When I woke up it was already too late for church."

If he's not going to mention it, I'm certainly not, Faith decided. She forced a weak smile. "You must be starved. Want me to fix breakfast now?"

"No!" he said hurriedly. "No. You just stay right there. I've got coffee ready and bacon in the pan. I'll make breakfast and bring it in here to you. Want some coffee now?"

Faith's eyes popped wide open. She couldn't believe her ears but dared not ask him to repeat it. She nodded her head and mumbled that that would be very nice, very thoughtful of him, then watched him smile broadly and hurry off to the kitchen.

Breathing a sigh of relief, she lay back and pondered the craziness of the situation. She could hear him out on the kitchen, opening and closing the refrigerator, rattling a coffee cup.

A moment later he came walking carefully into the bedroom, a cup of steaming coffee clattering softly on the saucer in his hand. Smiling nervously, he approached the bed and cleared a place on the nightstand to put the coffee. He straightened and stood beside the bed, pushing her ruined dress under it with his foot.

"Thank you, darling," Faith murmured as she sat up and reached for the coffee. She sipped at it, looking up into his eyes and trying to smile as if nothing was wrong. But her smile was weak, unconvincing.

"Hope I didn't get too much cream in it for you," Boyd said.

"No." Faith returned quickly. "It's fine... just the way I like it." She took another sip, as if to prove that it pleased her. When she looked back up, she saw Boyd staring at her breasts. She looked down at them and saw the bruises for the first time. Automatically she gasped and reached up to touch the livid splotches.

A pained expression swept over Boyd's face. He took the cup from her hand and put it back on the nightstand, then knelt quickly beside the bed and began kissing the ugly streaks on her breasts. "I'm sorry I hurt you."

Faith stroked her fingers through his hair, letting him go on with his soothing kisses until he began to sob. The sound of her husband crying confused her all the more. She took his head between her hands and pushed him away. Tears formed in her own eyes as she searched his pain-racked face. "It's all right, honey. I had it coming... oh God, Boyd! We've got to talk about it, honey. Last night... it was all so crazy and mixed up. I don't know what came over me... or you. What happened to us, Boyd? Why did we act that way?"

"I don't want to talk about it, Faith. It's in the past. Ignore it. Forget the past."

"Oh, Boyd... that won't help. We can't just ignore it. That won't make it go away, darling. I'm ashamed of how I acted. Let's talk about it honey. I need to. Maybe if we could talk it out and understand why we did it. Maybe that would help us get over it."

"Just forget it, darling. I forgive you for what happened at the Leathermans. Can you forgive me what happened after?"

"Oh yes, Boyd... yes, darling. I forgive you," she moaned, hugging his face once again to her sore breasts. "I forgive you. It isn't that. It's myself. I feel so ashamed for what I did. So ashamed... and I don't even understand why. I don't love Dirk. You're the only man I love. I don't understand what came over me. I can't forgive myself. I feel so cheap... so guilty. I betrayed you, Boyd."

Boyd drew away from her and held her shoulders. "Look, Faith," he said softly. "It's best to just forget about it... to go on living and act like it never happened. I don't want to think about it any more... okay?"

Though reluctant to drop the matter without some answer which would partly assuage her guilty conscience, Faith nodded her head. "All right, Boyd. If that's the way you want it. Shall I fix breakfast now?"

A certain smile of triumph and satisfaction always came over Boyd's face when he watched a customer sign a new sizable insurance policy. He could not explain his feelings at those times. It was a subconscious feeling, a knowledge that things were going the way he wanted them to, that he would benefit in the future as well as at the moment of the sale. He smiled that same smile now, at Faith.

Partly drawing Faith to him and partly bending toward her, he kissed her lips firmly but tenderly, as if sealing a bargain. "No, sweet baby. I'll fix breakfast for you. I want to. Now you just relax and drink your coffee. How many eggs do you want?"

"Just one," she said contentedly. "Over easy." Then she lay back and watched Boyd leave for the kitchen again. She sipped at the coffee.

It was nice. Boyd was right to insist they forget about it. She felt an extra warmth in her breast at the sound of cracking egg shells, an almost overflowing of love for Boyd.

But something puzzled her, didn't seem to fit. Boyd's smile? It was such a strange smile, such a knowing smile. He'd never smiled at her quite like that before, yet she had seen it. That first night she met him. He'd smiled exactly that way when her father signed the papers of the insurance policy Boyd had come to sell him. Could that mean anything, she wondered?

Reproaching herself for being so suspicious, for wanting to analyze everything until it made sense, she took another swallow of coffee. The coffee seemed to stick in her throat and form a lump. Some of the warm liquid went down her windpipe, causing her to cough and sputter. That it might be a bad omen flashed across her mind. She shook her head and laughed. That's silly, she thought. But still it bothered her.

What had Lucia said about Boyd last night? She couldn't recall the older woman's words. The words were not so important anyway. It was the way Lucia'd said it. Faith had felt that Lucia was in reality telling her much more than her few words had conveyed.